These Two Skin-Care Products Are Like a “Magic Recipe for Glow”

“Growing up in Sweden, I was the only brown kid in school,” says Babba C. Rivera, who recalls asking her Chilean father, a hairstylist, to tame her frizz and brush back the baby hairs that made her feel different from her classmates. 

As Rivera grew older, she still struggled with identity: “I would introduce myself as Swedish without realizing. It wasn’t a strategy, it was just this subconscious belief that being Hispanic was a disadvantage because I never saw any success stories of people like me. I never got to open a magazine and read about a Latina making big moves.”

Today, she’s flipped the script by creating Ceremonia, a line of hair products that celebrates natural textures and traditional Latin American ingredients such as guava and aloe. “I feel like I’m really doing my life’s work with this company,” Rivera says, “because it’s allowing me a platform to not only [get] back to my roots, but also empower others to see the beauty in our culture.”

Here, she walks us through some of her must-have products.